New
Senate Push to Pledge Unconditional Support for Israeli
"Preventive" War on Iran

By Jamal Abdi

October 13, 2012 "Information
Clearing House"
- - Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is planning to press
the Senate next month to pledge U.S. troops, money, and
political support to Israel should Bibi Netanyahu launch a
preventive war on Iran.

Graham
claims his effort would merely make explicit that the U.S. has
Israel's back. But when your friend is drunk, you don't hand
them the keys. If Graham has his way, he will hand Bibi the keys
and lend him our car, while the rest of us ride shotgun.

Graham's
planned measure would outsource the decision about whether the
U.S. goes to war to the Israeli prime minister, pledging that if
Bibi decides to act -- regardless of the consequences and our
own calculations -- the U.S. will provide money, troops, and
political leverage (presumably at the UN and IAEA where there
will be a push to shred the sanctions and the Non-Proliferation
Treaty).

Those who
support the measure will likely claim that a "credible threat"
of war must be issued in order to prevent an actual war. But
U.S. military leaders understand the difference between a
credible threat, which is already very much on the table given
the U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf, and outsourcing the
decision of whether the U.S. goes to war to Bibi Netanyahu.

As
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey
pointedly said just weeks ago about potential Israeli strikes on
Iran, "I don't want to be complicit if they decide to do it."
Graham's resolution is about as clear a signal of complicity as
you can get.

Graham's
mendacity on Iran policy should by now be notorious. His most
recent victory was to convince Congress to
endorse Netanayhu's redline for war with Iran instead of the
redline laid out by the president. The trick was that, in
pushing that measure, Graham
disingenuously claimed that Obama's redline was nuclear
weapons "capability." And Congress bought it. In reality, the
president very clearly rejected that redline and said the U.S
redline was to prevent Iran from actually getting the bomb, not
getting an amorphous "capability."

But Graham
(and Bibi) won the battle on the Hill. Both the House and the
Senate voted to endorse Netanyahu's redline, not Obama's. To be
fair, many in the House and Senate who supported the resolution
still have no idea that there is a difference. They read the
talking points circulated by Graham and AIPAC (the measure's
chief advocates), and to this day think they were simply voting
to endorse what Obama had already said.

Now,
Graham is herding his willfully ignorant colleagues to support
another incremental step towards war with Iran, under the guise
of being "pro-Israel" and supporting the president. His new
resolution would twist Obama's words that the U.S. "has Israel's
back" to mean the U.S. is on call to jump into war with Iran if
and when Netanyahu decides it's go time.

According
to
CQ, Graham said having Israel's back means, "if you get into
a fight, I'm coming to help you." He continued:

"There
are two different clocks here, the Washington clock and the
Tel Aviv clock," he said. "The Israelis are not going to let
the window close on their ability to slow down this program.
They're going to act... They're going to control their own
destiny."

Graham's resolution would make it clear that the United
States would provide assistance to Israel "if they have to
go because they've decided they are not going to turn their
window over to us or anybody else."

Sorry, but
there is a difference between not getting in Israel's way and
actively supporting a disastrous decision with American
servicemembers, money, and international political leverage.
Graham is hoping that, yet again, no one notices the difference.

Having
Israel's back does not mean supporting preventive war that the
entire national security establishment says would be a disaster
for everyone involved and could guarantee an Iranian nuclear
weapon. Having Israel's back does not mean goading them into
making stupid decisions and pledging to bail them out
unconditionally.

The Senate
should not be handing out promises to enable foreign leaders to
decide whether and when the U.S. goes to war. This would not be
a mutual defense pact -- it would be a suicide pact

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